A Father's Son.

It had stopped raining for a few hours, and it seemed even the skies were exhausted and catching their breath. There wasn't much of a crowd yet. Just a few relatives. It was still early in the morning and the news was only now getting by. Soon people would trickle in as two's and three's, friends and relatives to pay their last respects, say their last good bye's and stand in support of family thats lost one of its pillars.

Death can be cruel, and unrelenting. As evident from his shriveled body, sucked dry of all flesh and succor. A once healthy frame now just skin over bones. That warm shy smile had given way to a vacant gape of death and those once purposeful eyes now staring at nothing. Every bone could be counted, and it was all that remained. It's a cruel way to go, and he was a brave man to have taken it on.

Every leaf from the tree of life would one day wither and fall, return to the rich humus of soil and be absorbed back into the cycle of change. There is no escaping this movement. All that is born must die. The manifest become unmanifest, and form merge into the formless. But the fertile compost this leaves behind full of memories, dreams, stories, songs, laughters, tears, aspirations cultures, passions, wars, sacrifices, joys and tragedies - what a dazzlingly beautiful ground it is. Rich and pregnant, and so full of promise. Out of the moist decay of one, arises the fresh possibility of many. The old endlessly giving rise to the new. Death and life, two aspects of the same.

He appeared calm and there was a quiet determination about his ways. Doing what needs to be done, and accepting the inevitable. Grieve he must, but also proceed before the skies open up again. The responsibility from now would be his, and he was well aware of it. But this strength would have to contend with an enormous exhaustion of body and spirit. The last many score nights had been long and weary. But tonight he will sleep. For tomorrow is a new dawn and a new challenge.